[demo] Add blog post about Demo 2.0

content/en/blog/2025/otel-demo-2.md

@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
+---
+title: Announcing the OpenTelemetry Demo 2.0
+linkTitle: OTel Demo 2.0
+date: 2025-02-21
+author: >
+  [Juliano Costa](https://github.com/julianocosta89) (Datadog)
+sig: OpenTelemetry Demo
+cSpell:ignore: Abhishek Veeramalla's
+---
+
+We're thrilled to announce that OpenTelemetry Demo 2.0 is here! We've been busy
+behind the scenes, polishing up the demo to make it more complete, robust, and
+user-friendly. We believe these exciting features and improvements deserve a
+major release!
+
+But before we jump in, let's take a look at some of the project stats.
+
+## Statistics
+
+With a total of 140 contributors, the OpenTelemetry Demo has been starred
+**2048** times. On October 26, 2022 — two days after General Availability
+— we had a record 40 stars in a single day. If you use the Demo, consider
+leaving us a star to help promote the project.
+
+There are a total of 1.8K forks of the Demo. Notably, [Abhishek Veeramalla's
+fork][1] stands out with 142 stars and has been forked 425 times.
+
+The Demo containers have been pulled over **12 million times** (11.8M times from
+`ghcr.io` plus 433K times from `hub.docker`).
+
+The OpenTelemetry Demo includes the following CNCF projects:
+
+- [OpenTelemetry](/), of course
+- [Envoy][2]
+- [OpenFeature/Flagd][3]
+- [Jaeger][4]
+- [Prometheus][5]
+- [Valkey][6]
+
+## What's new in 2.0?
+
+This release is packed with exciting upgrades and changes. The following list is
+a quick rundown of the highlights:
+
+- **Flagd-ui introduced**: One of our most missed features since version 1.9.0
+  is back! You can again manage feature flags directly in the Demo. For more
+  details, see the [Feature Flags](/docs/demo/feature-flags/) page.
+- **Image-provider introduced**: Since release 1.10.0, we've introduced a new
+  service called Image Provider, which delivers static product images. This
+  service, built on NGINX, returns images for every product and demonstrates how
+  to instrument OpenTelemetry with an NGINX proxy using the NGINX Native
+  OpenTelemetry module.
+- **Redis replaced with Valkey**: Since version 1.11.0, we've replaced the Redis
+  service with Valkey, introducing another CNCF project to the OTel Demo.
+- **Build args moved to `.env` file**: If you forked the Demo and were using any
+  custom image, keeping your fork in sync with upstream was always a hassle. To
+  make things easier, we've moved most configurations to the `.env` file. We've
+  also added a `_DOCKERFILE` environment variable, which allows you to specify
+  the location of your build instructions.
+- **Services renamed**: If you've been using the OTel Demo since its inception,
+  you're probably accustomed to the verbose naming of every service. For 2.0,
+  we've streamlined things by dropping the `-service` suffix from all service
+  names. Now, instead of `ad-service`, `cart-service`, and `checkout-service`,
+  you'll simply see `Ad`, `Cart`, and `Checkout`.
+- **Accounting rewritten in .NET**: We wanted to showcase OTel's .NET
+  auto-instrumentation in the Demo without adding an extra service. Since the
+  Accounting service was originally written in Go—and we already had another
+  service in that language—we decided to rewrite it in .NET. Now, the Demo
+  features both the `Accounting` and `Cart` services, each demonstrating a
+  different way to instrument .NET applications.
+- **Added exemplars**: `Cart` service now records exemplars for `GetCart` and
+  `AddItem` operations, allowing correlation between metrics and spans. See the
+  [Exemplars section of the Cart documentation](/docs/demo/services/cart/#exemplars)
+  to learn more.
+- **React Native example app**: One of the most significant additions to this
+  release is the brand new React Native app example. It can be built for Android
+  or iOS (currently executable locally only). For instructions on how to run and
+  test it, see the
+  [React Native App documentation page](/docs/demo/services/react-native-app/).
+- **Span links for messaging spans**: Following OTel's recommendation to always
+  link producer and consumer spans
+  ([Messaging spans - Trace structure](/docs/specs/semconv/messaging/messaging-spans/#trace-structure)),
+  the Demo now demonstrates this best practice. Consumer spans for `Accounting`
+  and `Fraud-Detection` are linked to the producer span
+  (`Checkout/orders publish`).
+- **Multi-arch builds**: To ensure that a variety of users can run the Demo
+  locally, we've introduced new `make` targets to support building multiplatform
+  images (for both `arm64` and `amd64` architectures).
+- **Configured Dependabot**: We were falling behind on some dependencies, but
+  now Dependabot is configured to keep the Demo up-to-date automatically.
+
+## Current challenges
+
+Of course, with great updates come a few growing pains. Here's what we're
+currently tackling:
+
+- **Grafana dashboards**: As semantic conventions and tools evolve with new
+  releases, ensuring that our Grafana dashboards remain fully functional is a
+  challenge. If you're experienced with Grafana, we'd love your help!
+- **Dependabot PR testing**: While Dependabot helps keep all service
+  dependencies up-to-date, we haven't yet implemented automated tests to ensure
+  that updates don't cause crashes. This testing is still a manual process.
+- **Demo scalability**: Balancing the expansion of demo scenarios while keeping
+  the Demo easily runnable locally is one of our biggest challenges. With 19
+  different services and new ideas emerging weekly, we're continuously working
+  to maintain this balance.
+
+## What's next?
+
+We're not stopping here! Here are some of the next steps we're excited about,
+and we'd love your help:
+
+- **Bring Erlang/Elixir back**: In March 2024, we removed the initial Feature
+  Flag service written in Elixir in favor of OpenFeature and Flagd. Since then,
+  the Demo hasn't included a service in that language, but we're aiming to
+  reintroduce Erlang/Elixir. Any help in this area would be much appreciated!
+- **Remote access for React Native app**: We plan to enable the React Native app
+  to access a remotely running Demo, expanding its usability.
+- **Better automation and testing**: We're working to improve our automation and
+  testing processes—especially for Dependabot PRs—to streamline our development
+  workflow.
+
+## Get involved!
+
+Your feedback and contributions are what make this project thrive. If you're
+interested in helping out—whether it's polishing up the dashboards, automating
+tests, or bringing Erlang/Elixir back—please jump in and join the discussion on
+our [GitHub repository][7] / SIG meetings ([calendar-demo][8]) or hop into the
+[#otel-community-demo slack channel][9].
+
+Thank you for your continued support, and happy demoing!
+
+[1]: https://github.com/iam-veeramalla/ultimate-devops-project-demo
+[2]: https://www.envoyproxy.io/
+[3]: https://flagd.dev/
+[4]: https://www.jaegertracing.io/
+[5]: https://prometheus.io/
+[6]: https://valkey.io/
+[7]: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-demo
+[8]: https://groups.google.com/a/opentelemetry.io/g/calendar-demo-app
+[9]: https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/C03B4CWV4DA

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